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Monday, July 29, 2013

not perfect | obedience.

It's tempting to dream about having it all, and having it all together. I give in more than I should.

I'm not perfect, I never will be, and it's best that way. Just like I will not be finished and perfect in Christ on this earth, I cannot be finished and perfect as a {wife, mom, whatever}. AND, in both, I need to be leaning on Christ and others who have a little more experience and knowledge than me, using them to help me learn and grow continually.

I'm trying to surrender those desires for perfection, and my emotions lately are a good sign that God is breaking me. I'm holding on strong in some areas, knowing I shouldn't, but just not ready to let go yet. Not ready to fully trust that giving my desires up to Him doesn't mean giving up my desires. I'm struggling as I wrestle with the comparisons, and the negative emotions. All the, "I could do betters."

Most often the hardest is giving up my control as mommy, to let Him shape my mommyhood into what it needs to be to help raise our very spirited child (we'll stick with the positive terms, here :)).

Then I realized something that should not have taken me so long to realize. A lot of it boils down to obedience, commitment, and attitude. It took some other major stuff happening, unrelated to my mommyhood, for me to grasp it. And now, well it's hitting my heart like a ton of bricks. You may have guessed why... it's not just about my son's commitment to us as his parents and obeying his parents because God calls him to, but about ME, too. {Uggggh} Because I am committed to loving the Lord, I need to obey, and with a good attitude. Well that's easy! Not.

It all falls under that Faithfulness. When I am faithful with my {Jesus-time, time in general, choices, commitments, _____} and when I surrender all those same things (in faithfulness!), it's much, much easier to choose a positive attitude and choose to obey. God can't make us obey, but He knows the bigger picture, he knows what's best for us, and obedience to Him is always the best choice. It's the same for my son, and the only way to really teach him that is to model it, and require it consistently. I can't do either of those when I'm not choosing to be faithful, surrender, and obey myself.

And then my sister shared this quote from her pastor, "All of your will power, discipline, obedience, counseling and self-help books can never achieve what the presence of God can do in an instant." We can't forget to put ourselves in God's presence first. Loving Him and being satisfied in His love. I'm figuring out what that means.

I'm not just going to leave you with thoughts, today, because I have a lot of thoughts that are getting me nowhere, as will these thoughts without action. So I'm going back to my list, and you can, too (mentally or physically!). Start with your goal, then list out the things that need to be done to reach your goal, then list out some realistic steps to get you there. I'd say that realisticBible reading and prayer goals should be included - presence of God, first.

Lord, help me today to choose - faithfulness, surrender, positive attitude, obedience, love. Help me to bring myselfinto your presence as You eagerly await, oh God! Remind me of my perfect imperfection, and give me the strength to surrender as I seek to be faithfully obedient.